Light It Up: The Marine Eye for Battle in the War for Iraq by John Pettegrew (review)

In Light It Up John Pettegrew explores an intriguing phenomenon uniquely characteristic of twenty-first century warfare and, apparently, of the United States Marine Corps. At once cultural, institutional, and military history, Pettegrew's work argues that during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Marines projected force by "fashioning and deploying ways of seeing conducive to the commission of violence in battle"—a capability produced simultaneously by technological superiority and by a culture of violence that had conditioned young soldiers to move more easily beyond innate moral and ethical inhibitions that would have otherwise prevented the level of accuracy and deadliness that modern US troops achieved (7). Pettegrew terms this the "Marine eye for battle," a kind of enhanced awareness and instinct that, more than traditions of physical prowess and bravery that characterized the performance of earlier generations of American soldiers, have become common attributes of the post-9/11 marine (3). More than a trained skill, however, the marine eye for battle is also culturally constructed, shaped by what Pettegrew calls "institutional imperatives" of the Marine Corps, including history, tradition, doctrine, and myth, as well as a variety of twenty-first century technologies and cultural phenomena such as YouTube videos, video games, movies, and television programming—"war pornographies"—that combine to train and culturally condition young marines for battlefield violence (7, 8).

Pettegrew rightfully acknowledges his personal bias early on, pointing out that Light It Up is partly a result of his opposition to the war in Iraq. Observations in the present work are connected to Pettegrew's earlier explorations of modern American masculinity and popular culture (see, for example, Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920 [Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012]), both of which, he argued, influenced the development of an "optically calibrated, battle-ready mindset" in the post-World War II "warrior class" (1). He notes that the "relationship between culture and violence in war" is a primary intellectual interest of his, but admits that the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is the predominant impetus behind his current work. To his credit, Pettegrew is able to maintain an objective delivery throughout most of the narrative, although phrases such as "those it calls terrorists" to denote the victims of the US military's technologies of remote destruction are revealing (1-2). These thoughts aside, Pettegrew presents a thorough, timely, and thought-provoking treatise that both highlights important issues and examines a unique historical circumstance.

The crux of Pettegrew's argument is two-fold: the marine eye for battle is simultaneously shaped by both training and culture and often results from the convergence of the two in a single experience. In terms of training, modern US Marines are prepared and equipped with cutting-edge visual-based information technologies that enhance their level of network-centric perception. In other words, US Marines in the twenty-first century rely on technology that allows them to see and thus interact with more and more of the combat environment. Pettegrew includes information gathered from a combination of oral history interviews, media, and official sources to explore the enhanced awareness that was key to marine success in Iraq. Specifically, Pettegrew highlights how tools such as the Advanced Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance System (ATARS), which pilots of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing used, were able to provide a bird's-eye view for commanders on the ground, and details the use of the LITENING Pod targeting system, described by a marine veteran of the Persian Gulf War as the "best targeting system in the world" (22). Throughout this discussion, Pettegrew's focus is on the ways in which these capabilities affected and aided the personal experiences of US Marines—that is, how technological superiority helped Marines to see the modern battlefield.

Culturally, Pettegrew is fascinated by the relationship between popular media depictions of war and violence...